What We SawPhotographs from the Resettlement Administration and FSA

Blowers Gallery, Ramsey Library, UNC-Asheville

Curated by Michael Carlebach

Images made for the Resettlement and Farm Security Administrations in the 1930s documented dire environmental conditions in rural America caused by drought, erosion, and crop-killing pests such as grasshoppers, all exacerbated by the collapse of the stock market and economic depression. The result was widespread need and desperation in the American heartland. Photographs by Arthur Rothstein and others provided visual evidence of the extent of the crisis as well as justification for new federal programs to help alleviate the suffering.